


The One Where Cliff Discovers a Sacred Rule of the Universe

by beantown



Category: Doom Patrol (TV)
Genre: (don't we all?), (she does anyway), Crime Fighting In Florida, Dorothy Discovers She Is Nonbinary, Dorothy learns to swear!, Dorothy's Mom, Everyone Is Gay, Everyone is Trans, Except Vic Is The Token Straight, Families of Choice, Found Family, Gen, Jane Has Feelings, Jane Really Loves Dorothy, Rita & Larry BROTP, Rita Does Not Allow Dorothy To Swear, Rita Farr Is A Mom, Screen Reader Friendly, Team as Family, and Baby Doll's, vine references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 03:40:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28681968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beantown/pseuds/beantown
Summary: The Doom Patrol goes on a crime-fighting mission to Florida at 3 am.Only rated T for canon-typical swearing. Nothing worse than anything already said on the show.
Relationships: Crazy Jane & Cliff Steele, Crazy Jane (DCU) & Dorothy Spinner, Doom Patrol & Animal-Vegetable-Mineral-Man, Dorothy Spinner & Baby Doll, Dorothy Spinner & Rita Farr, Rita Farr & Larry Trainor
Comments: 7
Kudos: 8





	The One Where Cliff Discovers a Sacred Rule of the Universe

**Author's Note:**

> This is not my first rodeo. I've published fics online before, but I haven't in years. Feels good to be back. Also I have never published anything on AO3 before. Upgrades people, upgrades!

Everyone woke up at 2 am to the delightful sounds of children screaming and glass shattering. 

“This is why mom doesn’t FUCKING love you!” Dorothy yelled from the living room, where Baby Doll stood in the corner, baseball bat in one hand, shattered butt-ugly vase at her feet. 

The adults all shuffled in like a zombie clown posse, and all started talking at once.

“Who’s mom?” asked Vic.

“Excuse YOU Dorothy, I love all my children equally!” Rita said indignantly, crossing her arms and giving her her best Disappointed Mom Glare™.

“Who taught Dorothy how to swear?” Larry wondered out loud to nobody in particular. It was kind of a rhetorical question, as he was glaring accusingly at Cliff.

“Fuck if I know.” Cliff shrugged and wandered off somewhere. Nobody was awake enough to ask where, except for Dorothy, but she didn’t care. 

Baby Doll had disappeared and Jane was standing in her place. “OH MY GOD. DOROTHY DID YOU JUST QUOTE A VINE? I AM SO PROUD!” she shouted, sidestepping the pieces of broken vase to hug Dorothy, who laughed. 

“What’s a vine?” Larry asked the general population of the room. You could almost hear crickets chirping. Nobody answered because Rita and Cliff didn’t know either, and Vic and Jane looked like they would rather jump out a window than explain. 

“Why does only Dorothy get a hug?” Cliff sounded very upset about this. Everyone ignored him. They hardly noticed he had re-appeared with a broom to clean up the mess. 

“Don’t encourage swearing, Jane!” Rita was back at it again with the Mom Vibes™. Jane flipped her off. 

By now everyone was too awake to go back to sleep, and most of them had chronic nightmares anyway, so why would they want to? Instead everyone ended up sitting around the kitchen table watching “Stupid Criminal of the week” news compilations on Cliff’s laptop, because if your sleep-deprived ass is going to go looking for crime to fight at 2:30 am, it might as well be something stupid and low stakes. To be safe. Also it’s hilarious. 

“...Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man has escaped from a police department in Miami, where he was detained after being arrested yesterday evening. I have been informed by the police that he was not arrested for a crime that would pose a threat to the human population, and the public need not worry too much. Of course you should worry about the dinosaur head, though. The human part of Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man was arrested because he was allegedly “practicing karate” on the swans in a public park…” the newscaster announced into the void.

“Who wants to go catch this fucker?” Jane asked the group. Everyone responded yes with varying levels of enthusiasm. Right on cue, Flit appeared. 

“A goddamn Christmas miracle. Flit never comes when we need them,” Larry grumbled. Dorothy’s face lit up because she just learnt a new word she was not allowed to say. 

Flit whisked the Doom Patrol away to Miami.

Florida was in the same time zone, so it was still very late at night, or very early in the morning, depending on how you look at it. It was dark as fuck so really the only difference anyone noticed was the sticky humid air, there were palm trees and shit everywhere, and there was a higher concentration of dumbasses in the population. 

“THE STARS ARE OUT!!” Dorothy yelled. She pulled on the sleeve of Jane’s hoodie and looked up at her with her best irresistible puppy-dog-eyes. “Jaaaaane can you show me constellations? Pleeeaasse??” 

Jane would never admit that she would do anything Dorothy asked of her in a heartbeat, so she pretended to be annoyed. To keep up her reputation. “Sure. I don’t know many though. You could ask Larry, he knows all about space and that garbage.”

“But you’re more FUN!!!” 

Jane melted into a metaphorical puddle. Not a real one like Rita. It was because she was sappy and secretly cared and shit. 

“Ok. That one that goes like WOOOP?” Jane traced the stars with her finger and added sound effects. “That’s the Big Dipper. And um, that one below it, that’s like WOOOP but smaller? That’s the Little Dipper.” 

“Ooooooh...prETTY!” Dorothy squealed in Jane’s ear. “WHAT’S THAT ONE?” 

“That is called an Unintentional Straight Line,” Jane answered in a deadpan voice.

Cliff thought that was funny, but he didn’t laugh. He just made this really weird snorting noise instead, which set off Larry and Rita, who were laughing like normal humans, and soon everyone was losing it except for Vic. The entire Doom Patrol shared a single brain cell, and it was Vic’s turn with it at the moment. 

“OK losers, let’s get moving!” Vic demanded, and they head off on a stake-out of Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man’s last known location. They sat in the McDonald’s across the street from the park where their mark was arrested. Apparently he liked to hang out there a lot. Feed the ducks or whatever. Y’know, normal park shit. Like practicing karate on swans. 

Cliff went up to buy everyone coffee. Except Dorothy. Growing children are not allowed to have coffee. He could do this because it was a Florida McDonald’s at 3 am. Nobody would think he was weird here. 

As he was walking back to their table with a tray of coffee and hot chocolate, Jane yelled “SO NO ONE TOLD YOU LIFE WAS GONNA BE THIS WAY” and Cliff, along with literally every single other customer in this weirdly-full 3 am McDonald’s, automatically responded with the four claps. Because that’s just how the world works. 

Two chaotic things happened at once. 

  1. Cliff was bound by the Laws Of The Universe™ to clap, so he had no choice but to drop the tray of drinks. Jane cackled because this was exactly what she intended to happen. Larry glared at her because he just really fucking wanted his coffee, but Jane couldn’t tell because, y’know, bandages. Luckily Rita was Larry’s best friend so she used her stretchy blob powers to save the tray. Yay friendship. Nobody noticed anything weird because anyone in a Florida McDonald’s at 3 am has seen _much_ weirder shit than a woman who can make her arm freakishly stretchy. 



  1. Right as Jane was yelling, guess who walked in the door. That’s right. Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man. He had arrived just in time to clap along with the song. While he was distracted by fulfilling his civic duty to humanity, Vic tackled him. The Doom Patrol grabbed their drinks and unceremoniously dragged him out the door.



The police department didn’t seem very happy to have Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man back in their custody. The Doom Patrol, however, was glad to be rid of him, and Flit took them all home.

As soon as they all materialised back in the living room of Doom Manor, Dorothy announced to the group, “I think the Florida man stole my gender.” 


End file.
